August 2014 ratings: History in the making

7/31/2014 – The month of August saw a few historic moments. The first and most visible is Fabiano Caruana finally breaking into the 2800 club once and for all with 2801. Still, this was overshadowed by Hou Yifan breaking into the Top 100 players at 87th, only the second female in history. However, see the summaries to find out who scored 200 Elo or 300 Elo in a year and even 134 Elo in one month!

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FIDE August 2014 – Top 100 Players

The first big news of the August ratings list is right there in number three. Fabiano Caruana has broken into the 2800 club, rarefied ground indeed. It is true that he had done this twice already in the live ratings, but being 2800 for a day is not quite the same thing as appearing on the official monthly ratings lists.

It seemed a matter of time after arriving so close, so many times, but Caruana finally broke 2800

The second, and probably biggest is down at 87th place. Hou Yifan has done what only one female had ever done to this day, she broke into the overall Top 100 players in the world. The Chinese prodigy is finally beginning to live up to her early promise, and in one month has accumulated an amazing 32 Elo to take her to 2661, and just 15 Elo behind the legendary Judit Polgar.

After crushing the field at Lopota, Hou Yifan confirmed her world class status by coming secondat Biel. It all started with her win over Anish Giri in round one above.

On the flip side, the bad news for his fans is that Vladimir Kramnik has suffered a series of poor results, and is at a low of 2760 and 10th place in the rankings.

FIDE Top Women

Yes, Hou Yifan is the star of the list, but she was not the only player to gain 32 Elo. Armenia's Elina Danielian also pulled off the feat, and a number added 20+ Elo to their tallies, such as Ju Wenjun and the new European Women Champion, Valentina Gunina, fresh from her fantastic win at Plovdiv.

Valentina Gunina won the European Women Championship just two weeks ago with 9.0/11

FIDE Top Juniors

Although there were several strong ratings increases of 20 or 30 Elo (did we mention Hou Yifan?), there is one that is really beginning to stick out rather prominently: Akshat Chandra. This young 15-year-old IM from the US, not only gained 30 Elo in the last month, taking him to 2472 Elo, but has gained an astounding 200 Elo in the last year. A breakthrough you say? Try this: he was rated 1573 in March 2010 (he had just learned to play), 1905 in March 2011, 2130 in March 2012 (seeing a pattern here?), 2268 in June 2013, and now is 2472 in August 2014. Oh, and the 30 Elo this month comes from an open won by GM Rapport, where he came tied first-second with a 2650 performance.

Akshat Chandra receiving his second prize at the Paracin International Open. 900 Elo infour years... Not too shabby.

It goes beyond Elo though. He very recently submitted, of his own volition, an article to ChessBase News. This article was not about his latest and greatest success. No! It was on a young nine-year-old prodigy he wanted to bring to our attention. A generosity and maturity of spirit well beyond his years.

FIDE Top Girls

You might be expecting us to bring up Hou Yifan once again, and although she does dominate the list, her 32 Elo gain is almost paltry compared to some colleagues. The reason is that as of this list, FIDE instituted new K-factors to help accelerate the gains of new arrivals on the rise. If you are rated under 2300 and under 18, your K-factor is now 40.

As a result, 14-year-old Gunay Mammadzada from Azerbadjan, who had a fantastic performance at the European Women Championship, far beyond her 2182 rating, gained... (drum roll)... 134 Elo! For the record she is up about 300 Elo since last year. Colombian Paula Andrea Rodriguez Rueda was not far behind with a stupendous 124 Elo leap to 2368.

Top 100 Blitz

Although the top players refrained from playing for the most part, IM Stanislav Bogdanovich is showing himself to be a true specialist and one of the very best at the moment. While his standard rating is 2590, his blitz rating has not stopped rising, and he is now world 15 with 2754 Blitz Elo.

Albert SilverBorn in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, where he completed his Baccalaureat, and after college moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He had a peak rating of 2240 FIDE, and was a key designer of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News. He is also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications.

See also

1/31/2018 – January was naturally dominated by the Tata Steel Chess tournaments in Wijk aan Zee, and is otherwise a quiet month when most of the world's best players are inactive. It was a great success for Anish Giri, and a huge disappointment for Fabiano Caruana and Hou Yifan. | Photo: Alina l'Ami

See also

10/10/2017 – 13 o'clock Saturday afternoon in the sweeping bay of Douglas, Isle of Man. The out of sorts wind and nagging rain make sure one hurries indoors, into the snug haven of Villa Marina. Excited in anticipation, the chess crowd keeps on chirping and chatting and glancing at the swinging doors. A chilled Viswanathan Anand walks in, and relaxed Fabiano Caruana, a determined, frowning Hikaru Nakamura, Vladimir Kramnik, intimidating and imposing, and then there's Carlsen...Alina l'Ami retells the story of Isle of Man in pictures.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!

Discuss

Awonder is from the US. Maybe the US has finally produced someone who can go all the way to the top again after Bobby Fischer!

nekchess 8/2/2014 06:17

Awonder is a wonder!

cedar 8/1/2014 09:05

Awonder Liang, two times of World Champ for age (U8 & U10), is just 11 years and 4 months old. From June 2013 to August 2014, his FIDE rating moves from 2053 to 2327, up 274 points. Awonder is the number one rated chess player for his age group in the world by more than 200 FIDE rating points over the number two rated player. More strikingly, he is even the number one rated chess player for U12 in the world. History in the making? indeed! Please take a good note of it!

frior@euronet.nl 8/1/2014 08:31

ff2017: So maybe she should have concentrated on beating stronger Chinese men instead of messing with weaker women. Becoming an overall Chinese champion would have been a better goal than becoming a female world champion - and probably widely esteemed much higher. Maybe a bad choice by the Chinese chess federation, not her fault. But you don't and can't escape the facts: she had an 'early promise' in april 2009 and she seems to be 'finally beginning' to fulfill it after april 2014. So chessbase was quite right here.

ff2017 8/1/2014 06:05

Frits Fritschy: Probably played too much vs Chinese Men. She loses like 10 rating points every time she's in the Chinese Championships/Danzhou Masters. Against the Women and non-Chinese Men, she performs a lot better. Even she admits being at a psychological disadvantage against her male Chinese compatriots. Still I would say she has to overcome this hurdle of hers.

VGerber 8/1/2014 02:44

Divine Yifan...

Frits Fritschy 8/1/2014 11:28

ff2017: check Hou Yifan's rating chart at fide.com. Between april 2009 and april 2014 she gained just 28 rating points. For juniors, that's called serious stagnation. Played too many women's tournaments?

brahmaiah 8/1/2014 08:10

I SUPPORT FF2017.Why dont you call her a shooting prodigy!

ff2017 8/1/2014 04:10

"The Chinese prodigy is finally beginning to live up to her early promise" Beginning!?!.... Women's world champion at 16, finalist at 14, Full GM at 14. Replacing "finally beginning" with "continuing" would be a better choice of words.